A treatise of original sin ... proving that it is

SECT. XIX.

How prone it is to receive the Devils Impressions and Suggestions.

Lastly, The imagination is greatly polluted, In that it is so ready and prone to receive the Devils impressions and suggestions. When we lost original righteousness, which is the image of God, not only original sin like an universal leprosy did succeed in the room thereof, but the Devil also did thereupon seize upon us as his own: our souls and all the parts and powers thereof are his habitation; he reigneth in the hearts of all by nature, we are all his captives; so that as a man is said to dwell in his own house, it is his home, he may do what he will, such a right and claim hath the Devil to a mans soul by nature, he dwells in it, he moveth and reigneth in it: Now the imagination is that room of the soul wherein he doth often appear. Indeed (to speak exactly) the Devil hath no efficient power over the rational part of a man, he cannot change the will, he cannot alter the heart of a man, neither doth he know the thoughts of a man, so that the utmost he can do in tempting of a man to sin, is by suasion and suggestion only; but then. How doth the Devil do this? even by working upon the imagination. Learned men make this his method, that he observeth the temper and bodily constitution of a man, and thereupon suggests to his fancy, and injects his fiery darts thereinto, by which the mind and will come to be wrought upon; for it is Aristotle's rule, That Phantasmata movent intellectum, sicut sensila sensum; so that as the object of sense, being present, doth presently move the sense; so do phantasms and imaginations move the understanding. The Devil then, though he hath no imperious efficacy over thy will, yet because he can thus stir and move thy imagination, and thou being naturally destitute of grace canst not withstand these suggestions; hence it is that any sin in thy imagination, though but in the outward works of the soul, yet doth quickly lay hold on all; and indeed by this means do arise those horrible delusions that are in many erroneous ways of Religion, all is because their imaginations are corrupted; yea, how often are these diabolical illusions of the imagination taken for the gracious operations of Gods Spirit? Divines give many excellent Rules, how we may discern between those delusions of the imagination by Satan, and the savoury workings of Gods Spirits in illumination, and consolations: